Free South by South East by Anthony Horowitz Page A

Service…”
    “What sort of work?” Tim asked.
    “That’s a secret. But I’ll tell you this much. I was ordered to look after Jake McGuffin while he was over here. His boss – Mr Waverly – was desperate to find Charon.” Rushmore paused and considered. “There was something odd going on,” he added. “Something Waverly hadn’t told Jake.”
    “You mean, Waverly was keeping something back?” I said.
    “That’s right. There was a connection between Mr Waverly and Charon. It was as if they knew each other in some way. Jake said the whole thing stank. But he never found out what it was…”
    A connection between Waverly and Charon. It seemed impossible. After all, Waverly was the one who wanted to find Charon. It was all getting confusing. “What was McGuffin doing here in Holland?” I asked.
    “He’d followed Charon over here.” Rushmore finished his Coke. “The last time I saw him he was planning to check out some old house just outside the city.”
    “You know the name?” Tim asked.
    Rushmore nodded. “Yes. It’s called the Winter House. The
Villa de Winter
, in Dutch. It’s about twenty kilometres from Amsterdam.”
    “Twenty kilometres…” Tim tried to work it out on his fingers. He didn’t have enough fingers.
    “Twelve miles,” I said. I turned to Rushmore. “Could you take us there?”
    His eyes narrowed. “It could be dangerous.”
    “That’s all right,” Tim chimed in. “You can go in first.”
    Rushmore looked from Tim back to me. “All right,” he said. “The rink closes at six today. Come back at five past. I’ll drive you out this evening.”
    We stood up.
    “See you later, Mr Skater,” I muttered.
    “Yeah. Watch how you go, Hugo,” Tim added. I looked down at the ice, searching for the figures that I’d glimpsed behind the mist. But the ice was empty. The two of them had gone.
    We got back to the ice rink at six o’clock after an afternoon in Amsterdam. It was still light outside, but once we’d passed through the swing doors into the old building it was as if we’d entered some sort of artificial Arctic night. The ticket-seller had gone home. The lights had been turned off and the windows with their frosted glass and wire grills kept most of the sunlight out. The rink itself stretched out silent and empty, with the mist still curling gently on the surface. The music was switched off, too. But the machine that made the ice was still active. I could hear it humming and hissing like some sort of mythical creature, its pipes spreading out like tentacles, chilling everything they touched.
    “Where is he?” I whispered. My words were taken by the cold air and sent scurrying up towards the rafters.
Where is he? Where is he?
    I could almost hear the echo.
    The mist on the ice folded over itself, rolling towards us.
    “What…?” Tim began.
    There was something on the ice. It was in the very middle, a grey bundle that could have been somebody’s old clothes.
    “Wait here,” I said.
    I walked through the barrier and onto the ice. I could feel it, cold underneath my shoes. As I walked forward, my feet slid away from under me and I had to struggle to stay upright. The ice-making pipes rumbled softly below. The mist swirled round my ankles, clinging to my skin. I wanted to hurry but I was forced to be slow.
    At last I reached the bundle.
    It was Rushmore. The Dutch secret agent must have been on his way to meet us, crossing the ice when he was stopped. Somebody had found out who he was and had known about his connection with McGuffin. And they had made sure that he wouldn’t help us.
    He had been stabbed twice. The blades were still in his back, one between his shoulders, the other just above his waist. There was a pool of blood around his outstretched hand. It had already frozen solid.
    I took one last look at the body and at the blades, long and silver and horribly appropriate. Because whoever had killed Hugo Rushmore, professional ice-skater and spy, hadn’t